


Kintsukuroi

by dahliafred



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 03:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 9,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1329832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dahliafred/pseuds/dahliafred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Hannibal goes on the run, everyone else is left to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this as a Season Three spec-fic before the second season started up. Parts of it have already been rendered AU and I'm sure much more will follow. If you can get past the incongruities, I hope you enjoy!

The officer reporting to Will Graham has to stop and excuse himself to be sick, twice. Baltimore PD's Quick Response Team had strict instructions to make sure Jack Crawford and Alana Bloom were safe and the property secure, but otherwise, to touch nothing until the FBI arrived. Perhaps the directions had been unnecessary - in this case, the crime scene is less likely to be contaminated by local law enforcement than they are by it. Will awkwardly pats the man on the shoulder, as a means of dismissal, and heads down the hidden staircase to Dr. Lecter's basement.

Jimmy Price and Bryan Zeller greet him with grim nods - today, there is no cracking wise from the investigators. There are other agents who Will recognizes but doesn't know by name and a couple of Bureau photographers. A flash lights up the industrial kitchen, all pristine chrome and grey concrete. For once, Will finds it easy to look. There is little to imagine here, only the uneasy sense that he has lived with this particular monster too long to be shocked by its design.

"Hey." Beverly Katz appears at his shoulder, holding an evidence bag of what looks like bone fragments. "What did the doctors say?"

Will takes a deep, shaky breath before answering. "Alana is fine - physically - aside from the shock. Jack... we'll know more once he's out of surgery."

Bev shakes her head. "I'm no blood spatter analyst, but I saw that pantry, Will."

_I know_ , he mouths. For a moment, he's not sure which of them is going to fall apart first. But Bev wipes her eyes and clears her throat.

"We're pulling in a team for each room - we've covered three of five right now. There're still a couple of doors that the guys haven't been able to open." She looks around the kitchen. "This room is probably the least horrific. Ironic, considering most of us have eaten with Dr. Lecter."

An agent rolls a stretcher past them. A trail of steam hovers over the body bag, the parts within still cold from the walk-in freezer. Will fights back the urge to retch.

"We got it," someone yells from the hallway. Price and Zeller make their way toward the voice. There's the sound of something heavy being moved and a rush of warm air. Then, silence. Beverly leans back so she can see down the hall. Against his better judgment, Will follows suit.

After a moment, Jimmy Price reappears. "The two of you need to see this." His voice is calm, but something in it makes Will step a little quicker.

Will stops dead in the doorway.

The room is markedly different from the rest of the basement space. The walls are painted a blue-green so deep, they almost appear black. The furniture, in stark contrast, is all white. Even the oriental rug on the hardwood floor has a pattern that can barely be seen, faded shades of bone and ivory tracing delicate patterns through the plush fibers. There is framed artwork on the walls and several leafy green plants in corners and tucked away on shelves, right down to a white orchid on the bedside table.

Will Graham sees all this, but does not take it in. All he can see is the woman, curled up in an armchair, feet tucked neatly beneath her. She peers over her book at them in mild surprise. Will has never met her, but given the unnatural stillness and plastic sheen of the left hand against which the book is propped, he knows exactly who this must be.

He steps over the threshold, past the others, and offers Miriam Lass his hand. Silently, she closes the book and takes it.

As he escorts her from the room, he hears Zeller mutter, "Someone's gotta tell Jack."


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't think it should be you, Alana."

Alana Bloom looks up from the pasta she's pushing around her plate. It's edible, by hospital cafeteria standards, but she's not hungry.

Will is gazing at her. At one point in time, direct eye contact from Will Graham would have been a tiny victory. Now, it's almost uncomfortable. They've seen the same terrible things, and she can see that knowledge in his eyes every time he looks at her.

Even so, she stares right back.

"I think it has to be. And Jack thinks it should be."

"And we know how Jack always wants the best for everyone." Will's tone remains acidic and bruised when he speaks about Crawford.

 "In this case, he's right. "

Will sighs and leans back in his chair, tired of looking. "What happened to the Alana Bloom who advocates for the clinical, controlled approach? Remember how you told me the first person to speak to - Abigail," here his voice breaks a little, "couldn't be someone who was there when it happened? You were right."

Alana mutters something to her plate.

"What?"

She raises her head, now slightly annoyed. "I wasn't there when Miriam was discovered, Will. I was here."

She can feel the gun in her hands, the warmth of it after firing four shots into Hannibal from less than three meters away. It had taken all her courage to step around his unmoving body to get to the kitchen. Blood was pooling out from under the door to the pantry - Jack Crawford's blood. She tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. She dialed 911 again. The operator made her promise to stay on the line this time, taking down details of the second victim.

_Victim._

Alana had choked on a laugh as the tears rolled down her face. She sat down and leaned against the locked door. Her fingers slid in the blood. "Jack?" she whispered to the man on the other side. "Jack, help is coming. Stay with me."

Five minutes later, she jumped at the sounds of shattering wood and glass. Heavy footsteps came thundering down the hallway, punctuated by shouts of "Clear!" The first QRT officer stepped into the room, checked the corners, and walked over to her.

 "Ma'am," he said, "is there anyone else in the building?"

She staggered to her feet as two EMTs wheeled a stretcher into the kitchen. "One male, injured, locked behind this door. "Another..." her voice trailed off as two officers readied to ram open the lock.

"Ma'am?"

Alana stepped into view of the hallway. There were two long stripes of deep red where the gurney had rolled through a puddle of blood. The sound of the wheels replayed in her head. It had traveled from the front door to the kitchen unobstructed.

"No," she whispered. "No, no, no."

Alana drags the fork across her plate, the tines smoothly cutting grooves in the marinara sauce. She takes a deep breath and makes sure her voice is dispassionate and level as she speaks. "To recover, Miriam Lass is going to need someone who can understand the precise kind of horror she experienced."


	3. Chapter 3

Míša wakes up in a strange bed. She is used to waking up to find an IV in her good hand, but not to the sterile white walls and harsh light, barely diffused by thin curtains. Someone is reading to her. She frowns in confusion - it's a woman's voice.

"You're awake." At the foot of the bed, the woman sets the book down and gently shifts her weight.

"Where am I?" Míša asks, blinking against the light.

"We're at Johns Hopkins. I'm Alana Bloom. Is the light bothering you? I could - "

"Yes, please." The woman gets up and closes a second, heavier set of curtains. Míša can see her now, still surrounded by a halo of light, but features coming into focus. She's pretty - dark hair and smiling eyes which are somehow, currently, sad. She walks back over and settles herself on the foot of the bed.

"It's nice to see you again, Miriam."

"Miriam?" Míša repeats.

"Miriam - Miriam Regina Lass." Alana's smile falters. "Miriam, how much do you remember?"

Míša remembers how autumn smells. The scent of burning leaves wafts up from the farm at the end of the drive. The air is crisp and the sky is blue, caught between the pale, naked branches of the trees. Sprawled in the dry grass, she looks back up toward the house when she hears her brother call her name. The house is large and dark red, with neat white trim around the windows and a low gray dome on top.

Hannibal, impatient, calls her name again.

She opens her eyes and looks at the drawing.

"Do you remember, Míša?" he asks.

She traces the thin, precise lines with her finger hovering a centimeter above the paper. She does not want to smudge his exquisite work.

"I remember," she says.

Hannibal smiles.

_"Miriam?"_ Alana Bloom's concerned voice jerks her back to the present.

Míša blinks. Hannibal is no longer sitting beside her. "I think you have the wrong person, Ms. Bloom," she replies coolly.

Alana cocks her head and folds her hands. "I apologize. Would you mind introducing yourself to me?"

Míša considers not telling the woman anything. Hannibal will come for her, soon. The longer she makes them wait, the less mess there will be to clean up when he arrives. But her pride wins out. She raises herself up against her pillows like a princess of Bohemia.

"I am Míša Lecter. Can you tell me if you have heard from my brother?"


	4. Chapter 4

Beverly Katz snaps the drawer shut and brings the file over to the table. The Bureau's pile of information on Hannibal Lecter is growing by the day, but a lot of the older material has yet to be digitized. This particular folder is stamped BIS, borrowed from the Czech national intelligence agency.

"There _is_ one record of a Míša Lecter," she tells Will and Alana, "A census taken in December of 1970." Bev places the paper on the table in front of them and taps it. "See the name above hers?"

Will slides the paper along without looking. Alana, however, picks it up and reads every word. "He has a sister," she murmurs.

" _Had_ ," Will corrects.

"You assume she's dead?" Bev asks.

"She'd have to be. Otherwise he'd have no reason to - carve out a space in Miriam for her." He winces at his own choice of words.

Bev fixes Alana with a stare as she returns the paper. "You can fix this, right?"

"I'm hoping," Alana says. "But it's not just psychological. Toxicology lists a number of drugs in her system, including morphine, clozapine, and scopolamine."

Bev whistles lowly. "Is there a chance that once she's clean, she'll remember who she is?"

Will shakes his head. "The drugs would have made her more susceptible to suggestion, but Dr. Lecter would use them as one tool of many - like a hand truck rather than a full moving crew. He finds joy in rearranging a person's mental furniture all on his own."

Bev ignores the little squeeze Alana gives Will's shoulder, filing that information away for later. "Good luck moving it all back," she tells Alana.

"I can guide her through the process, but she has to come to the conclusion that she _is_ Miriam Lass on her own."

"Is there anything we can do to help?"

"Jack mentioned he'd had Miriam's things from the academy put into storage. I'm headed to his office to get the key. Anything from her old life would be useful."

"Typically, with a victim of brainwashing, family members can be valuable assets," Will remarks.

"But Miriam doesn't have a family," Bev says.

"Right. Her parents and her older sister are all deceased."

Will is gone for a minute, in his own head, before saying, "Her sister didn't die of natural causes, did she?"

Bev sighs, clicking open a file on her laptop. "You're right. It's a pretty grim story - her sister was a victim of the Bellevue Strangler. Parents divorced, father moved away and died of a heart attack in the late 90s, mother overdosed on sleeping pills when Miriam was in college."

"Jesus."

"You never would have heard it from Miriam, though," Alana remarks.

"You met her back then, Dr. Bloom?"

"Briefly."

Bev nods. "Me too. She came in to ask how long fibers can last in an improperly cleaned wound before the surrounding tissue absorbs them. She seemed - nice. Bright. Very driven."

Alana remembers these same traits, along with a polite frankness that probably saved her life. It's these memories that give Alana hope that Miriam might be able to make her way back to herself.


	5. Chapter 5

"Hello. Mind if I come in?"

Míša looks up to see Alana Bloom in her doorway. She shakes her head.

"How is your arm? The doctors said it's been giving you a little trouble, that they'd like to fit you for a new prosthetic."

Míša ignores this. Her arm is fine. Her brother selected it for her.

Alana removes a photo album from her bag. Míša idly notes that she pulls up a chair today, rather than perching on the end of the bed. "I'd like for you to look at something for me," Alana says, softly.

Míša props the album against her knees and opens it. The person in the pictures has her face, but it isn't her.

"Do you know what year it is, right now?" Alana asks her as she flips through the pages. When Míša says nothing, she goes ahead and answers her own question. "Today is May 3rd, 2013. The woman in the photos you're looking at - Miriam Lass - went missing in late 2010. Over two years ago."

"Her friends must miss her," Míša says, looking at a picture of three young women, all dressed in dark blue polos and khaki slacks, smiling for the camera.

"They do," Alana says. When Míša flips the page, Alana laces her fingers together and leans forward. "I notice you worry about her friends, but not her family. That's very astute - Miriam's sister and parents are deceased."

Míša raises her eyebrows and turns another page. The next set of photos aren't candids. They look like pictures taken at a crime scene. The girl with her face is crouched down, examining something, while a middle-aged black man with broad shoulders hovers at her shoulder. "An orphan - like me."

"That's right."

Míša reaches the end of the album and snaps it closed. "I'm quite lucky - I still have my brother."

Alana looks as if she's searching for the proper words. "Where is your brother?"

Míša fiddles with her necklace, a nervous habit.

Alana is suddenly very still. "That's a pretty necklace. Did Hannibal give that to you?"

Her fingers stop moving. "Yes."

"Could you tell me about it?"

"There's nothing to tell. He's my brother. He takes care of me. And you can have this back," Míša says, offering up the album.

Alana stands to leave. "You keep it, for now."


	6. Chapter 6

"It could have been me, Jack."

"The thought had crossed my mind."

Even in a hospital bed, Jack Crawford is a commanding presence. His voice is slightly raspy, perhaps because of the bandage on the side of his neck, or perhaps out of disuse - there are no agents to bark orders to here.

Alana wonders how he really feels about Miriam Lass's current state of mind. When she'd told him, he'd simply replied, "She's alive. We can work with that." But he still can't say Hannibal's name, only referring to him as _him._

"Hannibal had me working on PhD candidate interviews that week. If he hadn't kept me so busy, you would have asked for my help."

"I'm aware of that."

Alana sighs. "My proximity saved me."

Jack shoots her a keen, sideways gaze. "Are you looking for an apology?"

"No. I think I'm asking for your forgiveness."

He softens immediately. Jack Crawford, despite his faults, is aware of the weight he asks people to carry.

"I am the _last_ person you need to ask for forgiveness. There's one person to blame for... _this_ , and _he_ couldn't care less whether or not he's forgiven."

"Jack, I should have known. Around the time Miriam disappeared, I assumed Hannibal was having an affair. There were... unexplained absences. A few late mornings. It wouldn't have been remarkable in the case of anyone else, but..."

Crawford begins to shake his head before wincing and thinking better of it. "We all should have known. Hell, Will gave it to us on a silver platter, and we still couldn't see the truth. _He_ was good. Damned good."

"He gave her a necklace," Alana replies, distractedly.

"What?"

"A necklace - Miriam Lass is wearing a pendant and I've seen it before. A box slipped out of his coat pocket one evening, as we were getting ready to leave. It fell, open, and I picked it up. There was a necklace in it. I - I teased him about it."

Jack's face is like stone.


	7. Chapter 7

Míša's arm aches. Fingers she no longer has tingle at the end of a phantom limb. She shifts slightly, searching for comfort. Her brother's arms tighten around her.

"Are you awake?" she whispers into the dark.

"Yes." She can feel his breath, warm on the back of her neck. "And so are you."

"My arm is driving me crazy. It hurts."

The shape beside her is moving and then the lights flick on. Her brother looks down at her. "Would you like more morphine?"

"Yes, please," she says.

Hannibal gets up and leaves the room, comes back moments later with the needle. She offers up her good arm. He finds a vein in the crook of her elbow and gently slides the needle in. She watches the liquid disappear, easier to look at than so many things she's seen.

He leaves again. She knows he'll come back. He doesn't often sleep down here with her - really, she's too old for that now - but if she asks him, he'll stay all night, chase the bad dreams away.

The doorway frames his silhouette as he enters the room. She smiles up at him. "Thank you."

He looks mildly surprised. "For what?"

"For taking care of me."

There's a change in his face - it's subtle, but she can tell. A younger sister can always tell.

He returns to his side of the bed, leans across her to turn off the light. "Go to sleep, Míša," he whispers, brushing a gentle kiss against her forehead. As the morphine takes hold, she laces her fingers through his.

When she wakes up, her arm still aches, but her brother is nowhere to be found against the soft beeps and crackling intercom of the hospital.


	8. Chapter 8

The timeline stretches across two boards - each is divided into increments of fifteen months. Thirty months total. Will buries his face in his hand before digging into his pocket and dry swallowing two aspirin.

Beverly eyes him. "You okay?"

"Fine," he says, a bit more fervently than required.

Zeller's eyes dart between the two of them before he begins. "So... Miriam Lass disappears on November 16th."

"A Tuesday," Price clarifies.

"Correct." He walks over to the end of the other board. "Her _arm_ was found January 23rd of this year. That's a Wednesday," he says, with a pointed look at Price.

"And the rest of her was found last week."

"As we are all aware."

They all stare at the emptiness between the points on the board.

"What exactly does Jack hope to get from this information?" Will asks. "Some idea of Lecter's mental state, some clue as to how long it takes FBI trainees to crack?" He laughs, humorlessly. "Because whatever we find out, it's not going to be pretty."

Beverly folds her arms and speaks directly to him. "It might help Miriam understand what happened to her."

"Miriam doesn't even know she's Miriam," says Will, running a hand down his face.

"Maybe we can help with that."

"Uh, back to the board then?" Jimmy Price taps the dry erase marker impatiently.

"Jack gets three calls in a row - the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd." Price marks the dates on the board. "We confirm that the arm belongs to Miriam that evening. Tests are inconclusive as to how long the arm has been severed, but show it was frozen anywhere from three to twelve months before being thawed."

"The phone calls to Jack - do we think they were recordings or did Dr. Lecter drag her out in broad daylight for a field trip to the Crawford home?" Zeller asks.

"No - " Will interjects, "he'd keep her environment very controlled, from the drugs he administered to her, to what she ate, to the temperature in her room. Leaving her room would be a reward, but probably only inside the house - just the basement, maybe."

He winces as he relives the feeling of sitting in Dr. Lecter's dining room, the gray paneled walls seeming to flow around him as Lecter sets down a dish in front of him and whispers, "Bon appétit."

"The language was the same in each of the calls. We know the final call was a recording. I think it's probable the rest were as well," says Bev.

"Lecter wouldn't have risked undoing all the work he's done inside Miriam's skull - he wouldn't have reminded her of who she really was," Will agreed.

Price puts his hands up. "So we're thinking..."

"Within 24 hours of capture. Before he started digging into her _bone arena_ ," Will says, bitterly.

"He reprograms Jack's number in her phone, hopes she's dialing too quickly and under too much stress to notice, lets the call go to voicemail?" Zeller shrugs.

"It's a theory," says Will.

"Hopefully one we'll be able to confirm or discard in the near future."

Again, the four of them stare at the vast, blank white of the board.

"Alana Bloom has her work cut out for her."

As they pack up, Beverly catches him by the door.

"Hey Will - why don't you join us for drinks tonight?"

Behind her, he can see Price raise his eyebrows to Zeller.

"Maybe some other time," he says, frowning through the headache.

It's not until he gets out to his car and swallows a few aspirin that he realizes he's been to Dr. Lecter's house several times, and his dining room is dark blue, not pale gray.

Will bursts back into the lab. Mercifully, they're all still there. Will notes the sudden drop in volume, averted glances, little fidgety tells that let him know that they were just discussing him, but right now, he doesn't really care.

"We missed something," he chokes out. "There's another room."


	9. Chapter 9

Míša 's never seen candles glow quite like these do. Brilliant colors tinge their little halos, dancing and changing like the northern lights. She reaches out a hand in wonder. Her brother snatches it away just in time.

"You will burn yourself, Míša." He pours her some wine. The Semillon rolls in the glass, looking the way the satin of her dress feels. A few drops hit the side of the glass, leaving legs as they run down the crystal curve. She is fascinated by the trails they make, runs her own fingers down the outside of her thigh as she follows their progress.

"Now," her brother says. "Shall we eat?"

Míša admires the plate he has prepared for her. Two pieces of veal, pale marbleized flesh and fat, are encased in thin strips of crackled golden skin and rolled tight. They lie on a bed of parsley and thyme. A hollow bone full of salt, a sliced quail egg and a single small red potato round out the arrangement.

Hannibal watches her carefully as she picks up her fork. Quickly, she becomes frustrated. The meat is difficult to slice with the edge of the fork and using a knife is out of the question. She does not wish to embarrass herself in front of the guests. Tears spring to her eyes as she quietly sets down her utensil in defeat.

Her brother gets up from his seat at the head of the table and comes and sits down beside her instead. He offers her the handle of the silver knife. She takes it. He pins the veal down with her fork, allowing her to slice through it. Once she's carved the slice of veal into neat little pieces, he raises a bite to her lips.

She looks him in the eyes as she takes it into her mouth.

"What do you think?" he asks as she chews thoughtfully and swallows.

"It's delicious," she says. "As always."

He studies her face for a moment. "You look lovely this evening."  

"Thank you," she replies.

"I think I have just the thing to complete your ensemble."

She blinks as he procures a small box from the pocket of his dinner jacket. "For me?"

He nods and lifts the top off. Her little gasp seems to delight him as much as the compliment to his cooking. With her good hand, she touches shiny pendant. It's teardrop-shaped, surrounded by a row of tiny pave diamonds. The stone is sharply cut and shimmers somewhere between sapphire and emerald, with a golden stain of fire in its depths.

"What is it?" she asks.

"Labradorite. A common stone, but with qualities that can prove exquisite, in the hands of the proper craftsman."

She looks up at him. "Could you - ?"

"Of course."

He sweeps her hair out of the way and fastens the necklace for her. She touches it and smiles, mesmerized by the way the facets of the stone catch the candlelight. "Thank you for the lovely gift." He pats her on the left shoulder, making her wince even through her morphine haze, and returns to his seat at the head of the table.

"My brother is so kind." Tears prick her eyes as she grins across the table at one of the other guests. The girl doesn't smile in return. It's difficult to smile without a face, or a head, for that matter. Míša feels a pang of sympathy.

"Forgive me for my rudeness," Hannibal says. "Míša, this is Abigail Hobbs. Abigail, meet my sister, Míša."

Míša raises her good hand to touch her necklace again. "It's nice to meet you, Abigail. You're wearing a lovely scarf."

"She's happy to meet you as well, I am sure. And this," he gestures to the end of the table, where a man is strapped upright in a chair, "is my good friend, Will Graham."

"So nice to meet you Mr. Graham," Míša says. "Hannibal always speaks of you so highly."

Will Graham doesn't respond to his name, chin to his chest, his head lolling about.

Over his glass of wine, Hannibal smiles at three of his favorite people.


	10. Chapter 10

The horrors of Dr. Lecter's basement have, for the most part, been tagged and boxed up or photographed and disposed of. Even so, the very walls of the house seem imbued with the presence of their recent owner. The narrow stairway only adds to the claustrophobic feeling as Will and the BAU team descend into the darkness.

Jimmy Price flicks on the lights. They enter the cavernous, gray kitchen. Brian Zeller sets the black case he's carrying on the counter and removes the FLIR camera."It's a bit of a long shot. The camera is better for finding people - well, people who are still living and breathing," he amends.

"So the plan is, what, pump up the heat and wait?"

"Pretty much."

Bev adjusts the thermostat and they wait, peering at the image on the camera screen. At first, there is little difference, but slowly, the heating vents go from pink to orange, and the maze of ducts begin to appear like lemon-juice ink held over a flame. They follow the main line down the hallway, checking off each room that's already been accounted for.

"Look," Bev says, in a hushed tone.

Where the hallway runs out, a blank dark wall in their vision, the ductwork continues on, glowing fuchsia for the camera.

They spend a while looking for a hidden door before Will gets impatient, leaves, and returns with the sledgehammer they'd brought just in case.

"You sure you got that?" asks Zeller. "Because I could..."

"I have plenty of prior experience," Will says dryly. The others stand well back as he picks up the hammer and swings it into the wall. Plaster crumbles and 2x4s and fireblocks begin to poke out of the fiberglass like bones from a shallow grave. The hammer breaks through into the darkness. Will uses it to pull at the drywall on the opposite side. Light gray chips flutter to the floor. At one time, Will would have been relieved to find confirmation of his sanity. Right now, he's more worried about what they're about find on the other side.

The hole is big enough now to fit his head and shoulders. Beverly passes him a flashlight. He flicks it on and shines it over the room.

The space is far more conventional than the dining room upstairs, almost mid-American homey, in a tasteful way. This makes the body sitting at the table seem even more out of place, by comparison.

Will returns the hammer to the wall with a fury. Soon the hole is big enough for them to clamber through.

"See, there was a door." Jimmy Price points out a sliding mechanism, now badly bent, amongst the debris. Will hardly hears him, the blood rushing in his ears as he walks toward the seated, headless figure.

Abigail.

Will pulls out the seat next to her and sits. He places his hand over hers. It's very cold, the dry skin paper-thin and mottled.

He remains there as the rest of the team sets up lights and begins to sweep the room for evidence.


	11. Chapter 11

Kade Prurnell clicks out of Jack Crawford's room, her heels echoing an impeccably-timed staccato toward the elevators. She does not acknowledge Beverly Katz as she crosses her path.

"How's that going?" Bev asks, with a jerk of her head, as she enters.

"Let's not get into it," Jack replies. The look on his face says enough. Prurnell is going to be putting him through the ringer for this one. He motions for the file. She pulls the tablet out of her messenger bag and hands it to him. Jack is silent as he flicks through the crime scene photos. He gets to the end and shakes his head. Bev winces for him.

"Will Graham came along?" he asks.

"He was the one who figured out there was another room in the first place."

Jack narrows his eyes at the image in front of him and makes a noise that almost sounds like a sigh.

"Jack, are you okay with Will being back out there?"

He glances sharply up at Beverly. "I am. More than okay - I'm glad to have him back in our corner. But he shouldn't have been there. Not for this."

"How about Miriam?" Bev asks.

"How about _what_ about Miriam?"

"Is this something that she should see? Would it jog her memory, snap her out of it? Will seems to think it might."

"No," says Jack. "Absolutely not."

Bev cocks her head to one side. "She's a fighter, Jack. You don't have to protect her."

"I didn't protect her. That was the whole problem."

"Have you seen her yet?"

"No," he says, after a long pause. "Miriam needs to trust herself before being asked to trust any of us. Me most of all."

"Do you trust yourself, Jack?"

"Prurnell is entirely right. I should be under investigation. For Miriam, for Will..."

"Hannibal Lecter made us all look like idiots, Jack. It wasn't just you."

"No," he finally admits. "It wasn't just me. But I have a responsibility... to all of you."

"How many years of law enforcement experience does the average BAU agent have? How many degrees in psych, forensics, criminology?" Bev takes the tablet from his hands, relieving him of the burden. "We know what we're signing up for, Jack."

"Take it up with Dr. Bloom," Jack says, defeated. "Miriam is her patient."


	12. Chapter 12

"Are you feeling better today?" Alana Bloom asks as she enters the room with a potted orchid.

"I feel awful."

Alana sets the orchid on the table next to the bed. "The doctors tell me the psychotropic drugs are leaving your system. It will take a while to adjust. You may never feel quite the same as you did before."

Míša bristles. "Before what?"

Alana looks directly into her eyes. "Before you were Míša."

She wants to tell this woman that there _was_ no before Míša, but right now, it hurts too much to be Míša, hurts too much to argue. "Back when I was Miriam," she replies. _Miriam_ \- it sounds like the name of a character in a play, like Juliet, Antigone, Ophelia - she knows the general story but doesn't remember the lines.

Alana tries a different tack. "How aware were you of the passage of time, as Míša? Did you celebrate Christmas...Thanksgiving... birthdays?"

At the last one she nods. "Birthdays... my birthday, yes."

"When is your birthday?"

"August 15th."

Alana glances down at her file. Miriam Lass's birth date is April 7th, 1981.

"What year were you born?"

"I... don't remember."

"About how old do you think you are?"

"I don't know."

Alana hands her a small plastic mirror. "Look at yourself. What age would you guess?"

Míša looks in the mirror. Her face seems strange - she can see all the individual parts, but they don't seem to add up to a whole.

"Take your time," Alana says lightly. "Really look."

Míša examines the narrow face, the mouth that doesn't quite seem to fit, the nose that she loves from one angle and dislikes from another. For a moment, the features seem to come together, but it vanishes like a mirage. She's left staring at her strangely bright eyes, sunken in her face.

"Do you think you're older or younger than me?"

Míša puts down the mirror. It's hard to look too long. She clears her throat. "I'd say we're about the same age."

Alana smiles. "You'd be right. We're both thirty-one."

Before she can interrupt and ask how Alana knows this, the woman continues to speak. "How old do you think Hannibal is?" she asks, narrowing her eyes.

"I don't know."

"He's definitely older than his thirties though, right?"

"Yes, I guess..." Míša is uncertain of where this is going, but she doesn't like it.

"Do you remember Hannibal as a child?"

"Of course. I remember our house, I remember playing on the lawn."

"In these memories, how old is Hannibal?"

"He's a few... just a few years older than me," Míša says.

Alana nods and waits. Míša looks down at her hands. She finds herself tugging on her lifeless pinkie.

"Miriam, Hannibal is forty-six - at least, we think he is. If you're the same age as me - thirty-one - he would have been fifteen when you were born. Older by the time you would remember him."

"He could be younger than you think," she finally says, to her fingers. "I could be older."

"Even so... what you think is a memory of your childhood, isn't your childhood at all."

Míša closes her eyes and tries desperately to hold on to feel of the dry lawn, the smell of burning leaves, the sight of the red house, and the sound of her brother's voice. He calls her name, but he sounds different now, older. For a moment, she is so happy, she could cry. But as she looks to him, sees him stepping across the wide lawn toward her, the flaming leaves blow and catch his clothes. She tries to cry out to him, but it's too late - he's already on fire, crackling and being consumed. The grass is blackened in a neat circle around his feet. She can see the white of his skull, smell his sickly sweet flesh as it burns.    

"How stupid are you?" the girl sitting next to her asks.

"What?" Míša's neck cracks, she turns so quickly.

The teen rolls her brown eyes in exasperation. "Pass me a marshmallow. I'd like to have at least _one_ before you drop them _all_ into the fire."

Opening her eyes is like coming up for air. She's gasping in bed and Alana is holding her hand. A nurse is pushing her back down onto the pillow, finding a vein and sinking the needle in.

Míša watches, but somehow, this time, it's harder to see.


	13. Chapter 13

Will Graham hates bars. He's still not sure why he allowed Bev to drag him here, except, perhaps, to get her to stop asking. The entire thing is a mess of social interactions, tiny codes he observes but never feels comfortable participating in himself. People get nervous when you don't follow the code, and nerves have a tendency to turn into anger when alcohol is involved.

The beer itself isn't so bad.

Zeller is up at the counter ordering another round, while Bev and Jimmy Price argue good-naturedly over the effects of humidity on necrosis. Bev sees someone she knows and hops up. Within moments, Bev is back at the table, saving Will any attempts Price might make at conversation. But she's not alone.

"Jimmy, Will, this is Molly."

The woman across the table raises her beer and smiles at them both, her eyes lingering a bit too long in Will's direction, though they fall to his hands after quickly dancing over his face. She's got sandy hair and freckles and big blue eyes with long, pale lashes and Will is really a bit pissed off at Bev right now. Is this what all the invitations have been for - is she trying to set him up?

"I promised Molly I'd introduce her to some nice, normal guys. So... do either of _you_ happen to know any?"

"I'm a nice guy," says Zeller, walking up behind them, beers in hand.

"I said _normal_. Bryan, Molly," Bev says, quicker and with less enthusiasm than she'd introduced her to Will.

" _Molly_ ," Zeller repeats, with a smile. "So how do you know Bev?"

"We went to middle school together," she says. "Out in Washington - state." Will notes the pause between her words. She hasn't been in town long.

"No way," Zeller continues. "Middle school. So you've got to have some incredibly embarrassing stories about Katz here."

"Mmm..." There's a quick sideways look at Bev. "Not really." She's lying.

"So, Molly - how come we haven't met you before?" Will is getting increasingly annoyed by Zeller's repetition of her name.

"I don't live here. I'm watching a friend's gallery in Georgetown for a month - maybe two."

"Oh. Are you an artist?"

"I paint a bit. But mostly I curate other people's work."

"She puts on great shows," Bev inserts. "Some crazy stuff - what would you call it, that guy who welded, with the stained glass...?"

"'Sculpture' works," she replies. "Though the artist titled it _Dissolving into Light: Memoirs of the Shipwreck._ "

Will snorts. He's the only one to laugh.

As if to save him any embarrassment, Molly rushes on. "The gallery I'm watching right now is showing sculptures. You should come by, Bev. Or any of you..."

"Totally," Zeller says. Price muttered his assent, almost sounding as if he were parodying Zeller.

"What's the theme of the show?" Will asks.

" _The Sensitive Plant._ The artist was inspired by Shelley's poem. Ever heard it?"

" _For love, and beauty, and delight, there is no death nor change: their might exceeds our organs, which endure, no light being themselves obscure_ ," Price rattles off.

"The more I learn about you..." Zeller mutters.

"What? My tenth-grade lit teacher had a crush on Byron."

"Anyway," Molly shrugs, "It's a pretty neat show. You guys should see it."

Again, her shy eyes flick to Will's hands.


	14. Chapter 14

Alana Bloom is sitting there when she wakes up. Míša motions to the plastic pitcher behind them. Alana pours her a glass, handing it to her carefully. Míša nods her thanks, taking long sips and glancing around the room. Night has fallen. Thin strips of artificial light fall across the bed sheets, curving gently over her legs. It feels peaceful somehow, still. Míša gets the eerie feeling that time has stopped altogether. It's in this space that she feels safe to ask certain questions.

"You said Miriam had a sister." Her voice is raspy. Alana refills her glass.

"I did."

"What happened to her?"

Alana sets the pitcher back on the stand before answering. "She was murdered."

"Oh." There is a long pause before Míša asks, "How was she murdered?"

"She was a victim of Jerry Plevitts, the Bellevue Strangler."

"He was the one - with the plastic bags?" Her hand jumps to her necklace, nervously pulls the pendant back and forth on its chain.

"Do you remember your sister?"

"I remember... someone. Or at least, I saw someone."

Alana puts her head in her hands, leans forward. The dim light from the windows falls across her face. "Describe her to me."

"She had brown eyes, a round face. Brown hair with blonde highlights. She was... she was really sarcastic."

Alana picks up the photo album she'd left the other day and leafs through it. She flicks the small bedside light on before handing Míša the book. "Was it this girl?" she asks, pointing.

In the picture, two girls are sitting on a dock, squinting into the sun. The girl with her face, very young here, sits next to the girl who'd yelled at her for dropping the marshmallows.

Míša nods. "That's it then. I saw her in your book and imagined it."

"What did you imagine?"

"There was a - a fire. She asked me to pass her the marshmallows."

Alana smiles. It's a sad expression, somehow. "Did you ever go camping as a child?"

"I don't know," Míša is forced to admit.

"I imagine those would be happy memories. Though perhaps painful to access, given the circumstances."

Míša sniffs. This woman has no idea what pain is.

"Think back - can you smell the campfire? Can you hear Ginny's voice?"

For a moment, she _can_. The room swirls around her, makes a dreadful, howling noise. She covers her ears, waits for it to stop. When it does, she is certain of who she is once more.

Míša Lecter glares imperiously at the woman sitting next to her. "You want me to give up my brother, for what - a family who are dead? _All_ dead?"

Alana Bloom looks at her sympathetically. "I want you to give up a construct for reality." She places a newspaper on the nightstand and leaves in silence.

Míša glances at it. The date is May 11th. It's been over a week since her brother abandoned her.

Hot tears prick her eyes, run down her cheeks. He's not coming. He's really not coming.


	15. Chapter 15

"I can handle this on my own, you know."

Will cracks a wry smile as he pushes Jack Crawford's wheelchair through the halls of the hospital, toward the exit. They stop at the front desk, where Jack signs several papers, including his release form.

"I'm a free man again," he remarks, scribbling his signature on the line. Then he seems to remember who he's talking to. His face darkens. "Will..."

Will waves it off, but Jack presses on. "I owe you an apology." He continues to talk as Will wheels him out the front door, looks for the attendant bringing the car around.

"I couldn't have been more wrong about Hannibal Lecter."

Will opens the passenger-side door. "You got there in the end."

"I put your life, your health, and your sanity at risk. And for that, I am sorry."

Will smiles - a tight, thin line, but genuine.

They head south. As they get to the beltway, Jack makes a request. "Head east on 50."

Will does as he says without asking why.

Less than an hour later, they've arrived at the Chesapeake Bay. Jack has Will stop before the bridge, take the turnout to the state park. The sun is fading behind them. Lights of fishing boats twinkle to life out on the bay. They sit for a while in quiet contemplation.

"I grew up on boats like that," Will says finally, nodding.

"Down on the _bayou_?"

" _Yessir_." Will's careful sense of observation had allowed him to shed any down-country patois at an early age, before the patterns had become ingrained, but also allowed him to pick them up again if he chose.

They watch the bobbing lights for a while longer. Will is reminded of his little house, pictures for a moment windows glowing on an ocean of grass. The salty bay air disabuses him of the notion. This is a different type of home, one that for all its uncertainty, feels more secure at the moment. Jack interrupts his thoughts.

"I've been thinking about taking up smoking."

Will frowns at him, lips curling in a perplexed smile. "Why?'"

Jack hasn't smoked since college. He never particularly cared for the vice - it was more a social gesture than anything. But he can imagine the silent creep of the black tar in his lungs, settling in and slowly depriving him of air as Bella's cancer did to her. It would be a way to feel close to her again.

Jack shrugs. The two men gaze out over the Chesapeake. The last bits of light disappear behind them, leaving an ocean of blackness ahead.

"If there was one thing - one thing I could go back and change... He shouldn't have been at the funeral. I would not allow him to come to Bella's funeral." Jack laughs, a harsh bark. "He brought flowers. Dahlias and tuberose and eucalyptus. She would have loved them."

Will remembers the flowers. They had been remarkably beautiful. He imagines them now, long since crumbled to dust in a compost heap. Gingerly he pats Jack on the shoulder, stands and offers him his hand.

"Come on. We've still got a ways to go"


	16. Chapter 16

The following day, Alana Bloom comes in and sits by her bed. For once, she doesn't try to initiate a conversation. The two women sit in silence for hours, Alana with her hands folded, Míša leaning back against her pillows.

A nurse comes in, checks her chart, flicks the IV with a frown. She removes the needle from Míša's hand. She lets it loll in the nurse's grip. When the nurse lets go, she allows it to drop to the bedspread, as lifeless as her plastic arm.

Fake. Plastic. Like the rest of Míša Lecter.

She is no longer a person. She's a thin, transparent cocoon. She does not know yet what she will blossom into, what kind of insect she will become.

Removed from her basement hot house, she wonders if she will survive.

She has done so once before. In the cold, sterile hospital, Míša remembers her becoming.

It is about survival, at first, letting the new skin grow over her like a shell, slowly hardening. For the longest time, she pretends to be something she is not. He brings her tea and they look at his drawings as she listens to him talk about "their" childhood. He has her focus on the light reflecting off the glass teapot as she listens.

When he leaves, she clings to the bare patches, the scraps of flesh that are not yet Míša. Her old body is raw and painful, yet she cannot allow herself to give in to the cold, quiet comfort of the shell. If she does, Miriam will die, and Ginny will die again, with her.

Her sister's voice is what keeps her going, through the pain in her arm, the drug-induced hallucinations.

Sometimes he allows her to walk around the rest of the basement, sometimes escorted, sometimes on her own. She loses hours here and there, and finds herself terrified that they are being stolen by the new person inhabiting her body.

After one such gap, she comes back to find a tableaux spread out on the bed. A plastic bag with a smiling yellow face rests on the pillow. A crocheted ivory cardigan, yellowed with age, and a long navy dress are stretched out beneath the face.

Her sister was buried in those clothes.

"You bastard. You fucking bastard." The monster has crept up behind her. He holds her tight to his chest as she cries, soaking up her despair as her tears stain his paisley tie.

The necklace gleams so brightly, it hurts.


	17. Chapter 17

Will isn't sure what possess him to do so, but the following morning he finds himself staying on 66 East rather than taking the Beltway exit south toward Quantico. The boards that chart Miriam Lass's past fifteen months are too white, too blank. Their emptiness burns into his mind's eye, but Will is also afraid of their _possibility_ \- what they could be filled with, if Alana is successful.

Soon, he's crossing the bridge into the District. To his left is the boat club, the rough shapes of the Three Sisters out in the Potomac. Kayaks and paddleboards punctuate its steely flow with bits of color. With one hand tight on the wheel, he pulls out the business card that Bev practically forced into his jacket pocket.

Parking is a nightmare and he almost turns back. Just as he's decided, an SUV pulls out in front of him. He takes the space, feeds the meter, and soon his feet have taken him across cobblestones and down a narrow street to the door of the gallery.

A bell chimes as he steps inside, an almost pedestrian throw-back of a noise. Will wonders if it's supposed to be ironic. His footsteps echo in the space - it's large for this part of the city, probably built as a warehouse in the heyday of the C&O. The half-moon windows right below the roofline suggest the same.

"Will!"

He blinks away from the light at the sound of his name, sees Molly emerge from a white-washed door that blends into the wall.

"You came."

"I - I did," he says. He raises his eyebrows, surprised at himself.

Molly smiles. "Can I show you around?"

Most of the pieces of art seem to involve oversized human bones, cast in rough black metal. Molly offers a few comments about the artist here and there, but mostly, they just look at the work. Two skeletal hands echo the shape of a luna moth, pinned between them. A rib cage serves as a cage for a pair of live doves. A pelvis as a cradle for an infant skeleton. Lights flicker from the empty eye sockets of a skull, at least four times the natural size.

They pass a pair of legs, maybe five feet tall, serving as a trellis. The heavy flowers that droop from them smell like they're turning, the thickness of decay lying just under their heady bloom. The petals are slightly brown around the edges. Will's vision goes fuzzy for a moment and when it clears, he's staring at Miriam Lass over an elaborate centerpiece. Peonies, tulips, and roses cascade across the dining table. Their scent mingles with a putrid smell, coming from his right.

Will chokes down bile and stumbles for the door. He makes it out onto the brick stoop, sinks down on the step. His fingers bite into his skull as he cradles his head, trying to catch his breath. He hears a faint jingle behind him.

"Will?"

Molly's voice is a million miles away.

The door shuts. He closes his eyes and swallows, a bitter taste at the back of his tongue.

A minute later, the door chimes again and a slim hand appears fuzzily in his peripheral vision. Light gleams off the glass it's holding. Will takes the glass gratefully, sips at the water. Molly sits down on the stoop next to him. She doesn't speak, something else for which he is grateful. He casts around for something to say - an explanation, an apology - as he slowly empties the glass.

"Who feeds the doves?" is what he finally comes out with.

She laughs, quiet and warm. "I do. There are four more back in the office. The artist left instructions to swap them out in pairs every six hours."

"I bet you weren't expecting bird-keeping to be part of the job when you signed on."

"It's never dull in the arts, I'll give you that. And if it is," she adds, "you know you're doing something wrong."

A few of Hannibal's displays flicker through Will's mind. He grimaces. He wonders if Molly would consider them art.

"You're from Seattle?" he asks, more to clear his mind than anything.

"Mmm, that area. I live down in the Keys now. It's where we settled after - well, it's where we settled."

Her voice is all mid-American kindness, but Will senses that door is closed.

They sit for a while more before she nudges him with her knee. "Come back inside." He obeys.

They approach another sculpture of a skull, this one bowed toward the floor. The crown of the head is wreathed in white flowers and the face is shrouded with a gauzy veil.

"This one's my favorite." She puts a hand on the edge of the veil. "You have to take the time to look though," she says.

"Looking is all I do," Will replies.

"But sometimes, that's not a bad thing."

He looks at her, really looks. Sees the fine laugh lines by her mouth, the translucent skin under her eyes, the pale lashes that frame them.

"No," he replies. "I guess it isn't."

She nods toward the skull and pulls up the veil. They duck under it together. Molly leans in toward one of the eye sockets. Will follows her lead and peers in the other. A small tree grows inside, its branches straining against the confines of the skull. At the back, one branch has made it out. Light seeps in through the crack, illuminating the rest.

"Sometimes," he adds.


	18. Chapter 18

Miriam is jolted out of sleep by a noise. When she opens her eyes she blinks frantically. He's done something to her - she is blind.

Then her brain starts functioning again and she notices the absence of any sound. The absence of the electrical hum that usually washes over her as white noise.

She rips the IV out of the back of her hand, swings her legs off the bed. She almost blacks out as she stands, little red stars sparking across the pure, pitch darkness. She breathes deeply and tries to remember the layout of Hannibal Lecter's bunker. With halting steps, she makes her way across the room. Her finger scrabble over the door frame, find the knob.

It's unlocked.

Miriam wrenches the door open.

The air in the hallway feels different. Thanks to the drugs, it takes a good deal of effort to walk, but her feet keep going, even as she slumps into the wall on one side of the long hallway, then the other. As she stumbles into the kitchen, she thinks back to the night he brought her here. Hands pressed against the wall, she searches for the door out. 

It takes so long to find it and she is sure the power will be restored at any second. Instead, she feels the movement of air across her bare feet, finds the groove in the wall, hears the click as the heavy metal door unlatches and slides open.

Pale light shines from the open doorway above. The stone steps are cold, but smooth and even. She holds her breath as she climbs them, fingers running over the rough, slightly damp walls.   
Escape. 

A tssking sound comes from behind her. Her heart jumps into her throat. Her brain screams at her clumsy feet to run, but animal fear keeps her rooted on the spot. 

"I'm disappointed."

Her shadow eclipses any feeble light shining down the stairwell. The hulking underworld shape stands at its bottom, detectable only by his mass and movement. His hands crawl up the railings. 

She starts to run, hands and feet, but she feels his grasp around her ankle, feels it pull, feels each stair meet her rib cage on the way down. She twists and cries and gasps for breath as he throws her to the cellar floor. 

"I'm sorry Miriam. But soon, it will be necessary to relieve you of an arm." In the darkness, he seizes her left wrist. "This one, I think."


End file.
